Ecological Intelligence (11 page)

Bob Dylan

The devil made me do it.

4

FACING OUR SHADOW

D
ESCRIBING IT AS THE SUM OF ALL THOSE UNPLEASANT QUALITIES WE like to hide from ourselves and from others, but that we readily recognize in others, Jung gave the dark side of our nature a name. Calling it our shadow, he described it as “a moral problem that challenges the whole ego personality” and added that “no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable effort.”

Without an understanding of the shadow, effective self-examination is impossible, which is why, if we are serious about exploring the notion of an ecological intelligence, it needs to be addressed early. Who are the people and animals that
irrationally
get to you, those you instantly dislike and with whom you would rather not associate—priests, prostitutes, policemen, gargoyles, beggars, hags, hyenas, vultures, or snakes? How inflated is our opinion of ourselves? How far removed from Earthiness has our self-deception taken us? These are questions that are probing for the shadow and they are important questions. Why? Because we all have something of the hag and the hyena in us. We are all, in our own subtle ways, manipulators, con men, and we all own a little bit of the beggar too. We are pathetic, but we are also wonderful. And when we know this, when we recognize our inflation, or the scavenger, the con man and the roadrage creature within us, then we can learn how to say yes and no to them.

When we avoid entering the territory of the shadow, says scholar and author Michael Meade, “then we begin attracting shadowy figures who will one day explode into our lives.” Our shadow has deep biological roots. At home at the level of the brain stem, it is as if it has a life of its own. It is not interested in delayed gratification or the different shades of gray. “The shadow always wants something for nothing,” says analyst and writer Richard Chachere and, as naturalist Lyall Watson writes in his book
Dark Nature
, “it is bound to be selfish, angry, jealous, lustful, greedy, infantile, suicidal and murderous.” However, because of the energy that it generates, it is vital that we become conscious of it, that you put its energy on your side. Unacknowledged, it can be destructive. It is at the core of xenophobia and racism. Make no mistake about it, it is real. It is in our blood. We cannot escape it, for as Robert Louis Stevenson reminds us in his famous story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, wherever Jekyll goes, Hyde comes along with him. In other words, wherever the evolutionary younger forebrain goes, the older brain stem comes with it.

Stevenson’s story is a shadow classic in that it tells us what happens when one’s shadow is disowned. In an experiment in which Dr. Jekyll concocts a potion that would separate his good side from his bad side, he discovers to his dismay that he slowly
becomes
Mr. Hyde. In the end, the “good” doctor takes his life, also ending the life of the “bad” Mr. Hyde.

But why do we deny or repress it in ourselves? When considering the development of the human ego, it seems that we do it because we have to. Deception, as we shall see, is part of our survival and so is self-deception. It is a subtle strategy to escape the emotions that come with self-examination and accountability, and, like any strategy that is employed excessively or unconsciously, it is bound to become maladaptive.

A
part from the metaphysical association with the brain stem, it would appear that there is indeed an important neurobiological link to our psychological shadow. This link is recognizable in patients who suffer from a brain-damaged condition called right hemisphere syndrome. One of the manifestations of this syndrome is a phenomenon called anosognosia—the loss of an ability in a person to recognize that he or she has a disease or a physical defect. Sometimes paralyzed down the left side of their bodies, these patients often deny that there is anything wrong with them, even to the point of delusion. Mark Solms and Oliver Turnbull, two neuropsychologists who have investigated these patients, write:

If a patient who claims she is able to run is asked why she is in a wheelchair, she might respond: “There was nowhere else to sit.” If asked why she is not moving her left arm, she could say something like: “I exercised it a lot today, so I’m resting it.” These patients seem prepared to believe anything, so long as it excludes admitting that they are ill. Not uncommonly, they deny that their paralyzed arm belongs to them, saying that it belongs to someone else. They also frequently express intense dislike and hatred toward the paralyzed limb.

Sometimes, in an act reminiscent of the good Dr. Jekyll trying to get rid of the bad Mr. Hyde, they even go as far as to physically assault the limb. It should not be difficult to see the neurological parallels of the shadow in this example, but it begs another question. Are these patients really unaware of their condition? The answer, it would seem, is no. With one-on-one psychotherapy, what begins to emerge is that they are aware of their condition and that the denial of it stems from being unable to tolerate the emotions that arise from this awareness. Solms and Turnbull, in their investigations of two of these patients, write:

In their psychotherapy sessions, both patients burst into tears for brief moments during which they seemed to be overwhelmed by emotions of the very kind that are normally conspicuous by their absence. This gave the impression of
suppressed
sadness, grief, dependency fears and so on, rather than a true
absence
of such feelings…

The authors remind us that “you cannot come to terms with a loss if you do not acknowledge that it has happened”—an explanation that helped them in their analysis of a third patient with the same syndrome. In this instance, in the same way that we ignore or sometimes attack the targets of our negative projections, “Mrs. A did have an internalized image of her damaged, crippled self, and she attacked that image to the point of twice attempting to kill herself.”

To me, these examples point not only to the reality of our shadow, but to our personal fragility as well. They tragically reflect the degree to which every one of us unconsciously denies the “crippled” side of ourselves. Yes, the human ego is fragile. It needs to be defended, but at what cost to our capacity to grieve and to heal? And at what cost to the land, the animals, and our fellow human beings? There may well be a survival element in the denial of our shadow, but are we really unaware of what we are doing? I don’t think so. Deep down, we know that what is happening to the Earth has something to do with us.

In order to learn to embrace the shadow, it is important that we take a closer look at what happens when we remain unconscious of it, more especially the way in which the projection of the shadow rein-forces the establishment of out-groups, minorities, and scapegoats. Unacknowledged, the shadow becomes the enemy—dangerous, disorderly, fugitive, distasteful, stupid, lacking spirituality, and with no purpose beyond what is immediate. Every time we laugh at someone else’s misfortune, says Lyall Watson, it is our shadow showing. Every time we take pleasure in the pain of a rival, it is a genetic pleasure. Each time we display exaggerated feelings about others or behave out of character, we are seeing the genetic shadow in action. It can be frightening, even shocking, to come face-to-face with our dark side in these ways, but it is necessary. It is one thing to experience the pleasure of one-upmanship, it is another to get tangled up in the smugness that comes with it. It is one thing to know that we have a psychological shadow, it is another to be aware of what makes it so dangerous—
projection
: the act, albeit unintentionally, of pinning it on someone or something else.

Animal
: any animal, other than man…an inhuman person; brutish or beast-like…pertaining to the physical or carnal nature of man, rather than his spiritual or intellectual nature (
Hamlyn
Encyclopaedic Dictionary
)

One of the greatest insults to the animal kingdom is to describe unacceptable human behavior as that of a wild animal. Hyenas and snakes, for example, are well known targets for shadow projections. In a remarkable slander of Africa’s spotted hyena,
Crocus crocuta
, a recent book designed to identify corporate illness identifies a “corporate hyena” as follows:

Narcissistic, immature and neurotic. The corporate hyena most probably carries scars of a dysfunctional childhood [with] societal maladjustment embedded in their behavior. The corporate hyena is a control freak… true to the nature of scavengers and gluttons they will destroy and stuff themselves in our weaker moments.

This is anthropomorphic thinking (attributing human qualities to animals) at its worst. These are human attributes and they have nothing to do with these incredibly intelligent and social creatures. Apart from what seems to be a sad lack of knowledge about hyenas, these authors say there is nothing wrong with comparing particular types of human behavior with that of certain animals as it is commonplace all over the world, adding that “people have come to expect colorful expressions from Africa.” Indeed, comparisons are commonplace. However, there is a huge difference between comparisons and projections, which is precisely what these authors have failed to distinguish. They have projected onto hyenas the shadow qualities we are least likely to acknowledge in ourselves.

Recently, while guiding a group of international participants attending a conference at a South African game lodge, one of the delegates on a first-time visit to Africa announced that she did not want to see any hyenas or vultures. I asked her, “Why not?” and she answered, “Well… there’s something evil about them…you can’t trust them…and hyenas are cowardly aren’t they?” “Where did you get that information?” I protested. “From the movie
The Lion King
,” she replied awkwardly.

I have been privileged to observe and to follow hyenas in the wild—it teaches you to see them differently. Take, for example, the interactions between lions and hyenas. On the one hand they are the ultimate competitors, both species predominantly nocturnal, both hungry for the same prey, both chasing the other off their kills with equal frequency. In the bigger picture of wilderness, they are partners, each alerting the other to the source of meat. They keep each other on their toes, so to speak, contributing to a high degree of vigilance and athleticism in both species. There is nothing narcissistic or dysfunctional about them at all. In fact, they are a vital component of the wilderness. As for their humanlike qualities, would it not be more colorful to expect something along the lines of what African poet and medicine man Credo Mutwa wrote in his praise song to the
impisi
, the Zulu name for the spotted warrior of the night—the hyena?

These words, too, are projections, but there is no doubt about the sense of partnership in this poem. Embodying the noble part of ourselves, the hyena Mutwa describes leaves us with a sense of respect and reverence for these animals. Thank you for that, Credo.

A
nd what about the snake, that age-old serpent from Eden? Wrapped around the Tree of Life, that first chapter of Genesis makes it very clear that snakes exist on an axis of evil. But let’s take another look at these remarkable reptiles.

Snakes are among the oldest of the living species on Earth. They have been around close on 150 million years. Their scales precede the evolutionary leap of feathers, the softened forms of their reptilian skin, and they grow by repeatedly shedding their skins. The symbolic significance of their capacity to outgrow their skins was not lost on the ancient Greeks. It became a powerful symbol for the teachings of the god of healing, Aesclepius, who believed that a willingness to change, to outgrow old attitudes, and to become conscious of one’s suffering, was essential to the healing process. Now, wrapped around the legendary staff of this great son of Apollo, the image of the snake remains, to this day, the long-standing symbol of the medical profession. In this poem, called “Snake,” I pay tribute to this much-maligned creature: